Power plant rule has greens pro-Obama

Environmentalists rallied so hard for the Obama administration on Wednesday, you’d think power plants were shooting cotton candy from their smokestacks.

But can it last?

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It hasn’t been an easy year for the greens, who are usually considered in the bank for a Democratic president.

In the summer, President Barack Obama pulled back an EPA attempt to tighten smog standards, dismaying a wide array of environmental allies. He is also facing steep congressional opposition to his decision to postpone action on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the election — and to just about everything else coming out of the EPA.

But on Wednesday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson rolled out long-awaited power plant emissions limits for mercury, arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium and cyanide, among other pollutants.

“I’m proud to say we are closing out 2011 with our biggest clean air action yet,” Jackson said at an event at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, flanked by doctors, researchers, a pro-rule industry representative and an evangelical preacher. She touted the rule as one of three big EPA victories this year, along with the deal on fuel economy standards and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

Jackson and those joining her at the podium sought to underscore the health benefits that EPA says will come from the rule.

“I understand the importance of clean air protections like [this one] in very profound ways, because both of my boys struggled with asthma,” Jackson said. “Fifteen years ago, my youngest son spent his very first Christmas in the hospital. I think he was admitted almost 15 years ago to this day.”

And Obama issued a video address Wednesday, saying that “because we’re acting, emissions of mercury and other pollutants, which cause a range of health problems, including neurological damage in children, will decrease significantly.”

The rule was met with immediate and enthusiastic fanfare from environmentalists.

The Sierra Club is running a television ad campaign beginning Thursday in Columbus and Cincinnati, in the crucial swing state of Ohio, thanking Obama for “life-saving protections from toxic mercury.”

“We commend President Obama for this life-saving result,” Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said in a statement.

“This new rule continues the president’s initiatives to protect our environment and our health,” said NRDC President Frances Beinecke. “In addition to reducing mercury and other toxic air pollution, he proposed strong carbon dioxide pollution and fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, and moved us closer toward curbing carbon dioxide pollution from power plants,” she added.

But the notation about cutting CO2 pollution from power plants was one of several warning shots environmental groups slipped into their accolades Wednesday, noting that the mercury rule is not all they are hoping to see over the next year. The agency is expected — and under court order — to issue greenhouse gas emissions rules for new power plants in early 2012.

Ann Weeks, senior counsel for the Clean Air Task Force, noted that the mercury and air toxics rule “is projected to cause the loss of very little coal generation (EPA estimates a reduction of only 24 terawatt hours out of 4305 total terawatt hours in 2020) and only 18 million metric tons of CO2, less than a 1 percent reduction.”

“So,” she said, “in the next few months, we will look to the president to again take the lead on addressing global climate change, this time through issuance of a strong [new source performance standard] rule on existing coal-fired power plants.”

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CORRECTION: Corrected by: Naira Ruiz @ 12/23/2011 11:03 AM
CORRECTION: A quote in a previous version of this story referred to gigawatt hours instead of terawatt hours. EPA estimates say the mercury rule will reduce coal-fired generation by 24 terawatt hours out of 4,305 total terawatt hours in 2020.